Well, it’s taken just over a week for the result to be clear that Malcolm Turnbull won the election. I predicted a Bill Shorten win and I was wrong. I also said that if the result differed from my forecast that people should not blame the Stars but look at my interpretation.

Now is the right time to explain the rationale of my astrological method and I hope when I do you will see the method did produce a correct result, it’s just that I ticked a wrong box.

Using transits as an astrological method of prediction is very old- at least 5,000 years. It is simply seeing where the planets are at a future date from the date and time of birth and looking at these positions together. The birth chart is the blue print of the life and as the planets and stars move across the skies they move over the original blueprint of the life. The positions of these heavenly bodies apart from making angles to each others’ current position also make angles to their original birth position. Thus we have a double chart with the person’s birth chart in the centre and the passing transit planets the outer chart. As we see here:

In the 20th Century, Astrology took on a humanistic approach influenced by psychological theories, especially Carl Jung. Astrological effects, from this perspective, were inner, psychological influences and experiences. Gone were the more ancient concepts of “Good and Bad Stars”, of Stars determining an individual’s Fate. So, “Bad” became “challenging” and “Good” became “harmonious” for the inner world of the individual ie their psychological state.

Looking at and analysing transits from this psychological perspective means that we are looking at the influence of the planets on the inner psychological state of the individual. So “Good” transits will give good, positive emotional experiences and “Bad” transits will give bad, negative emotional experiences. Obviously within this duality of “Good and Bad” there’s a spectrum and within this spectrum there are nuanced interpretations. This is where the Angles and the Orbs come in to assist in reading the nuanced spectrum of emotional experience.

I took the simple formula that if an individual experiences good, positive emotional vibes then the outer world the individual is immersed in will also be positive. So, my simple formula meant that if Bill Shorten or Malcolm Turnbull experienced positive transits then these positive planetary positions signalled a win and vice versa.

The astrological readings of the Election 2016 (written about 3 months before the election) showed that Bill Shorten will experience progressively positive emotional states and that he would grow in confidence until the election and beyond. This is why I called a win for ALP. Conversely, the readings showed that Turnbull was in trouble emotionally and thus he would lose.

What is also interesting about these readings is that at the time of publishing everybody was writing Bill Shorten off. Malcolm Turnbull’s popularity was fading but no mainstream media journalist could see the possibility of an ALP win. The astrological readings here did.

If we look at what happened on 2 July, 2016 – Election Day, psychologically, Bill Shorten was ecstatic and Malcolm Turnbull was not a very happy man.

This is why I said at the beginning of this post that the reading was correct, it was just that I ticked the wrong box because I had the wrong question. If the question was – who would be the happiest on 2 July, 2016, and I answered Bill Shorten, there would be no question about the correctness of my reading.

However, I didn’t answer that question. I answered who would win the election and I was wrong.

I also tried an experimental reading a few days before the election because I and others wanted something a bit more current than the readings I made three months before. As we all know, the planets move at their own inexorable pace and the only way I could think of giving us another more current view was to do something different. I decided that since the election would affect our country, Australia, perhaps a transit analysis of Australia on Election day would give us an insight.

Some people are surprised that a country can have an astrological chart too. The reality is that ANYTHING that has a beginning or a birth can have a chart. There are stock market traders who use astrology to trade companies and corporations who use the birth of the company as its horoscope! Many Forex traders take note of the day to day transits over Foreign Exchanges – like London, New York ,Sydney and Tokyo. People would be surprised to learn that many Asian businesses and stock market traders use their own native methods of Astrology to assist their projections and investment strategies.

Events also have a birth and I have used this for the Cultural Stomp 1997, Woomera 2002, Baxter 2003 and the Flotillas of Hope 2004. I have also used it for some important TAFE projects I managed. Mind you, I never told anyone who worked with me at TAFE I did this because I knew they’d think I was crazy. Not bragging here, but I won National and State TAFE Quality Awards for different projects I initiated and coordinated that had astrological support. The astrological readings of these gave me insights I could never get from any other source and the confidence to push ahead and be immersed in the events. Astrology also gave me the appropriate time to leave TAFE and start on another journey in my life.

Coming back to Australia and its horoscope – I read the transits of the Election Day and I saw that the Election would be very close and a result delayed for quite a while. I did the reading on 30 June, 2016 and that is exactly what happened. Indeed, it took over a week for Bill Shorten to concede defeat and we still don’t know the final result yet as of today, 10 July, 2016.

I found doing Australia’s Chart an interesting challenge because I couldn’t empathise in a “psychological” way as I did with Shorten and Turnbull because I was dealing with a country. I had to refocus my “imagining” and surprisingly it took an engine like imaging where the planetary forces became “brake and accelerator” like. It is difficult to describe but I will just say it was an energetic reading whereas the Shorten/Turnbull readings were psychological.

Some have asked me to continue my astrological readings given the current state of play in Australia’s governance. If I do I will have to work out how to read the Senate and its relationship to the Government. Do I use the day the new Senate sits for the first time as its Birth date? What about Bill Shorten and Malcolm Turnbull, will regular astrological updates assist in reading the political ambience? I don’t know but I’m willing to explore these possibilities.

Thanks to all who have supported me in my astrological deliberations. I do this because it’s fun and because I now know there are others who find it interesting I may continue exploring this incredible and mysterious mode of “knowing” in Australian politics.

The chances of accurately predicting an election by pollsters and journalists are pretty dismal. If I toss a coin, there’s a 50:50 chance of being right. That’s not bad compared to some political commentators’ predictions.

A few years ago I came across an interesting article that said nearly 80% of astrologers who attempted, accurately predicted the 2012 USA Election outcome at least 3 months and one 26 years before hand! In his 1976 book “The Astrological Chart of the United States, from 1776 to 2141” Gar Osten wrote that the year 2012 would see the “re-election of the incumbent president”.

Intrigued I looked further into it because an 80% correct result is not bad considering most mainstream media had written Obama off before the election. A prediction 26 years beforehand is mind blowing.

I looked into each of the astrologers’ forecasting methods and predictive techniques. I wanted to filter out all approaches that were foreign to my approach and/or would require a level of expertise I didn’t have. By the end of this looking I found one I could adapt to my approach.

It was the simplest.

Now, I’m aware that most of you reading this have a critical and sceptical view on astrology.

For this reason, I’ve wracked my brains over how to structure what I want to say about the coming election because I use astrology as a tool for understanding life. If I wasn’t using this tool to make sense of current political atmospherics and wrote an opinion piece instead, I’d have no worries. For some reason the mention of astrology gets peoples’ backs up and they immediately throw an Art that works with Time into the recycle bin.

Most people are happy to read opinions and commentary based on other biased opinions and commentary churned out in mainstream media. An opinion based on astronomical data ie number, generated by an active imaginative interpretation of this is “superstitious”. However, an opinion based from within a Press Gallery Reality Bubble is not. Is the Press Gallery commentary scientific? No, just an opinion embalmed in a mainstream media consensus reality.

The stars and planets I’m concerned with are archetypal forces (Carl Jung), mytho-poetic currents within humanity. Astrology for me is a means of exploring the edges of rational thought as it touches the unknown. The horoscope is like a semi permeable membrane, it can suspend the ordinary associative processes of the mind and allow a different kind of attention to manifest. This attention, striking off from the symbolic elements of the horoscope gives a different kind of mind environment. Psychologists call it imagination.

Diagram from: http://uregina.ca/~lawlorda/jung/jung.htm

This way of looking at astrology is not accepted by most astrologers because it banishes star forces, energies, vibrations etc of the external planets and stars. This way of looking at astrology is troublesome for many because it says there is NO intrinsic meaning to the planets. It also points the way to divination. Divinatory astrology puts it on par with other mantic arts – like Tarot and the I Ching. To many astrologers this is anathema because they like to consider it as a “science”.

Some have referred to this kind of astrology as Hermeneutic Astrology:

“Hermeneutics is the study of meaning, of how we arrive at our interpretations of things. In the context of astrology the term implies a turning away from the common assumption that a fixed astrological meaning is simply “there”, in front of us, as some sort of fact of nature. The hermeneutic inquiry in astrology reveals the essential dependency of the meaning of symbols on the act of interpretation of that meaning. Seen in this way, horoscope interpretation involves something other than a supposed pre-existent meaning waiting to be decoded, and depends both on the context in which meaning is sought, as well as on the intentionality of the one making the interpretation.” (Cornelius, Geoffrey, C. 1994. “The Moment of Astrology: Origins in Divination”)

I like to consider this way of looking at astrology as a poetic interpretation of astronomical data. Poetry from numbers and geometry – active imagination in action. The calculations and the process of symbolising are just a pretext to occupy the conscious mind. The complexity of nuance and context for symbolising engages the rational mind while the REAL work is done by the broader and more holistic unconscious. This unconscious insinuates “meaning” beyond the logical limits of rational “complexity”. So, my manner of working these “complexities” is to treat them as a long Zen Koan and the Sky Map – Horoscope as a Yantra.

One can explore consciousness and imagination deeper and look at the structures of mind and the material that appears as is done in various and diverse ways by Phenomenology. I just like to play on the edge of reason, that spot between sanity and insanity, where all the wild creatures are 😉

Sometimes, in flickering moments, astrologising can be vision. A “vision – feeling” into another world that is holographic in structure, energetic and alive. In these rare glimpses, a human and the universe are seen as the same organism. As above so below, Hermes Trismegistus says. A different relationship exists between things – or at least that is what appears when astrological Sun glasses are worn.

Since Federation, fire and earth signs have been in charge for 96 years out of a possible 112.

The first Scorpio Prime Minister was Tony Abbott and the second Malcolm Turnbull.

Bill Shorten is a Taurus which is an Earth sign and Tanya Plibersek Deputy Leader is Sagittarius – a Fire sign.

Time of Birth Issues

The reality is that if the Time of Birth is not known then precise readings are not possible. In Astrology, some of the most important signs are the Angles which are determined by an accurate Time of Birth. Most astrologers consider the transits of Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto to the Angles, the Ascendant and Midheaven, to be among the most important transits in a person’s life.

However an error in the birth time of just 15 minutes can make the timing of these transits to Angles off by a minimum of two months (when the outer planet is moving quickly and the ascendant sign is of long ascension — like Leo, Virgo, Libra and Scorpio in Northern latitudes) to over one year if the outer planet is moving slowly (i.e. near its station), to a maximum of seven years for someone with Pisces or Aries, short ascension signs in the Northern Hemisphere, rising!

In other words, unless the birth time is very accurate, the timing of transits to Angles must be considered impossible to determine with any precision.

However, if we only consider the angles between planets (aspects) we may get a picture of what may lay ahead – maybe a bit fuzzy about the timing, but at least something.

There will be links to the charts showing the transiting planets over their charts during July, August, Sept and October because we do not have a date for the Election as of this writing. When we know the date I can then concentrate & focus on that date to gain a clearer picture.

Aspects and Angles, Orbs and Waxing/Waning

Orb

The orb of an aspect is how far from exact it is. For example, a square aspect is 90 degrees. If 2 planets are separated by 91 degrees (or by 89 degrees) then the 2 planets are in square aspect with a 1 degree orb. In other words they are 1 degree from being in exact square aspect.

The larger the orb, the weaker the aspect. An aspect with a small orb is very powerful. Some astrologers use much larger orbs than others. The allowable orb for a square aspect is believed by some astrologers to be as little as 2 or 3 degrees, and by some to be as large as 10 or 12 degrees.

Although this difference of opinion may be great, probably it is not as great as it seems because virtually all astrologers agree that the narrower orb makes the aspect much more powerful so astrologers who use very small orbs like to focus their interpretation on influences that are really powerful and salient in the person’s life.

Applying/Separating

An applying aspect is an aspect that is becoming stronger, while a separating aspect is one that is becoming weaker.

For example, suppose that a person has the Moon 89 degrees ahead of the Sun in the birthchart. Because the Moon always travels faster than the Sun and it is 89 degrees ahead of the Sun, then we know that it is in the process of becoming more exact; in other words it is an applying aspect.

On the other hand, if the Moon was 91 degrees of the Sun, the square aspect would be separating. Some astrologers feel that an applying aspect is more significant than a separating aspect because the applying aspect is more powerful and a more pressing challenge for the person whereas the waning aspect is not as critical, more of a waning issue in a person’s life.

Most astrologers, however, do not put a great deal of emphasis (or any emphasis at all) on whether an aspect is applying or separating.

Waxing/Waning

A waxing aspect occurs when an aspect formed as the faster planet moves towards being opposition from the slower planet, and a waning aspect occurs when the faster planet is returning back to conjunction to the slower planet.

Examples: If the Sun is at 10 degrees of Gemini and the Moon is at 9 degrees of Leo, this is an applying, waxing aspect with a 1 degree orb because the faster planet (the Moon) is heading towards the exact sextile aspect (applying), and it is moving from conjunction towards opposition (waxing). If the Moon is at 11 degrees of Leo, it is separating and waxing also with a 1 degree orb. if the Moon is at 9 degrees of Aries, it is applying and waning with a 1 degree orb, and if the Moon is at 11 degrees of Aries, then it is separating and waning also with a 1 degree orb.

Enjoy 🙂

Stavros

NOTE >>

This is not the place to argue the case for this ancient Art. If you are interested in how I perceive Astrology please click on these links on my blog.

Astrology is not science – it’s an Art. It uses astronomical data to alchemise meaning. It is a symbolic/mythic dowsing tool on dry number landscape. It sees quality in quantity informed by symbolism & mythology. In other words, it is a poetic interpretation of the Heavens above, a type of symbolic imagination in action.

The Commonwealth of Australia was sworn in on 1 January, 1901 about 1:35 PM in Sydney.

Australia is a Capricorn with an Aries Ascendant.

Capricorn Sun

Is in 9th House which shows Australia’s character (the Sun) matures through and is dependent on cultural diversity. Australia is a self reliant and independent country except for the strange anomoly of having a British Monarchy as Head of State.

Sun conjunct (0°) Saturn.

This anomaly can be explained in part by Saturn conjunct the Sun. Saturn in the sign of Capricorn signifies conservative values play a strong role in Australia’s people. We are pragmatic so we do embrace new ideas if they are practical. We take up new technology faster than any other country.

The “cultural cringe” Australians suffer from stems for this placement of Saturn so close to the Sun. However, this doesn’t mean we are not able to put ourselves “out there” and succeed. Australia acts with decisiveness, determination and perseverance.

Aries Ascendant

Australians are frank, pioneering, headstrong and self reliant.We revel in anything that enables us to take the initiative, avoiding following other people’s lead in preference for striking out into new territory.

This is emphasized in the chart with the Sun and the planet Mars coming into contact showing that Australians are hard working and energetic, able to tackle most challenges with confidence and a positive attitude.

We like to be first.We value challenges, particularly those that test us physically and mentally. We love our sport!

Mars in 5th House 45 degrees Pluto and Uranus

Having Aries as the Ascendant means Australia’s Ruling Planet is Mars which is in the 5th House. Mars has a 45 degree aspect with both Pluto and Uranus. This shows that through application and effort Australia attains great goals. Though small in population, Australia attains results expected from a much larger country as this aspect leverages flecks of genius. This aspect also shows why Australians are assertive and blunt, that the upheld middle finger is prominant and we never cower to those who wish to lord it over us. It also shows why we are powerful and have some of the world’s greatest sports people.

This also shows why we are willing to go to war as allies of the USA at a drop of a hat – Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq.

Having Mars in the 5th House and Jupiter (8th House) opposing Neptune (2nd House) explains our place as one of the world’s greatest gambling nations and our love for risk taking. This also is a weakness and the ensuing rampant speculation causes house prices to sky rocket in major cities and the huge boom-busts in the mining industry.

This Mars placement also shows our love for competitive sports and athletics.

Australians have to be careful and not over indulge in rich food, alcohol (Australians are big drinkers compared with other countries) and expensive toys because this placement also shows a tendency to go overboard.

Mars in the sign of Virgo and being placed in the 5th House shows a great interest in scientific pursuits, especially medicine. We are world leaders in things scientific.

Jupiter in the sign of Sagittarius shows an open, enthusiastic love of life that is infecti0us along with a generous nature. Jupiter in Sagittarius shows an enjoyment in exploring different cultures, religions and beliefs. Another sign that Multiculturalism is Australia’s destiny.

It also shows a love of sport.

Mercury conjunct (0°) Jupiter. This shows common sense, a constructive intellect and optimism abound in Australians.

Jupiter opposite (180°) Neptune. This aspect shows us as dreamers. It also shows our love for all things druggy. Yes, Australians are the biggest users of psychoactive drugs in the world.

Neptune opposing Jupiter instigates this along with making us spectacular speculators.

Venus conjunct (0°) Uranus This makes us extravagant .We are wasteful and we produce four times more greenhouse gases per head of population than Europeans do. Yes, we believe in Climate Change and taking action to alleviate it, while we own the biggest houses in the world, but we baulk if we have to pay for it. A classic example of this is Australians’ reaction to the Carbon Price.

The possibility that thought was matter and that this equivalence may be divided by a number, made every belief housed in my skull obsolete. Meaning was a promise made on the fact of my existence, so I thought. I knew then I had to seek solitude. Why and what solitude meant was just as an unknown as my new predicament. In this moment recognition crept along my spine. At first it was a tingle, a feather gently stroking my skin. From the small of my back up along the trough following my spine the sensation flowed. A place of warmth emanated from the middle, between my shoulder blades.

My body seemed at ease and receptive to some message. I didn’t know what was recognised, only that a call had registered through my nervous system. Who or what was calling?

It was strange how this new ignorance appeared. The recognition was sensed complete with a set of meanings ascribed to without consent of my mind. Could this new ignorance be old knowledge long forgotten? Deep down, beneathe layers of thought matter was the hidden destiny. This is what I felt. It didn’t matter whether it was a long forgotten bone buried by some equally long forgotten god, or just an abstraction to humour a sense of self. This hidden destiny pointed in a direction away from thought.

I lit another cigarette and walked over to the window. The sky was clear, the thunder clouds were swept away by the afternoon breeze. What was this call that began to sound in my secret emptiness? “Surely bones don’t shape one’s destiny!” I said aloud. Perhaps destiny was too big a word. My skin felt warmer all over, I closed my eyes and concentrated on an image of a candle flame. This was something I did when I was a kid before falling asleep. I felt the in and out of warm and cool air, breathed through my nostrils. Deep inside my chest, the flame burnt steadily, wax the pulse, relativity the breeze. Gentle candle smoke rose and insinuated itself along fissures and walls of my skull. My feet and hands became an extension of an invisible stranger that uses flesh and bone as a gardener uses a spade.

A snake slithered through sounds in the air. Its presence a mere hiss of silence, a soft scrape against a wall. As I looked down onto my hand resting on the window sill I recognised the snake curled up in gold around my Holy Ghost finger, a ring, a gift from a long lost friend.

“Babylon is burning at the end of your cigarette,” she said. She appeared before me with a pitcher of water in one hand and the other holding a glass. The air around me crackled – static on a phone. She whispered, “Tell me, what is a man? Wind blown dust swirling into a cone of events, swinging to and fro, like a pendulum across the face of his quarter acre block?” By now she had me in her gaze, though I could not see her eyes.

With the effort of a Houdini I replied, “I take refuge in my beliefs…..” I repeat this over and over in my mind, a merry-go -round mantra. The guns of doubt click and explode in Russian roulette timing: silent movies, iceberg expectations, half life relics, pantomime gestures. Bang! Frame by frame, every movement a question mark in human animation, every frame subtitled, ” I think, therefore I am.”. The soundtrack ever repeating “I take refuge in my beliefs”.

She placed the pitcher on the table and took a sip from the half empty glass. “You think that the real, natural heart’s,” she pointed with her long finger , “that thing pumping in your chest. You are seriously mistaken.” She flicked some hair away from her eyes as she spread the feathers of one of her wings. Each feather had inscriptions that looked alternatively Cyrillic then Chinese with Arabic curves, Hebrew endings and Greek beginnings. All this however was just guess work for in truth I had no idea what was written. For all I knew each feather could have been a letter in this alphabet of feathers and the whole word wing a verb with an unknown subject . Perhaps the split between subject and object wasn’t even in this grammar – I was illiterate in the language of angels. I found myself mesmerized by the area of her wing immediately to the left of her elbow. The letters or patterns were themselves hieroglyphs, or so I thought. I felt here was a mystery – how could something be itself and yet point to something else for its identity?

“This is not the time to labour the point. The whole three dimensional world presented to your senses five is a total illusion. If you could slow this holographic movie down to nearly zero you would find flesh and blood is one step removed from your real body. This real body which you fail to recognise is imperishable. It’s the same with your mind. You think that you think, that you set the perceptual and then the conceptual parameters, that the images and ideas in that psychological space are yours. They are just as synthetic as your heart.”

She stopped talking and stroked the rim of the glass with her index finger. The low hum coming from the glass punctuated the silence. She began talking again in a slightly louder whisper, “In fact your thinking is the thinking of someone else that has passed through your mind. You are property. Thoughts that cruise and fly by in your mind are visitors and have nothing to do with your volition. They enter, stay and leave, sometimes become squatters on their own accord. The cube of mind, a stage and a corridor, a cage and a peeping Tom show through cracks of vision, sound, smell, taste and sensation .”

Her countenace slowly began to fracture, crumble like a clod of dry clay and become translucent – from a Greetings Card angel to a stained glass living sculpture. Gradually her form shattered into many more countless pieces. She became a mosaic of color merging with the window. Like salt in water she dissolved through the glass and became orange streaked twilight dusk.

A snail slithers across the dome skull of history. Echoes, of prophets wailing, a curling shell. Cochlea. Earth. I heard the calling, (my) intent unknown.

I’m sitting here ruminating about stuff. Kinda like reviewing a movie, a film called “My Brilliant Career in TAFE”. It has been 5 years since I left TAFE. In the first year images of TAFE World – faces, encounters, engagements, conversations and meetings kept flashing across my mind. Scenes rose like steam from a drying towel in the sun. Rather than in a sequence, my mind made it all appear like one of William Burrough’s cut up stories.

When TAFE got rid of Principals it also got rid of access and equity principles. From a college it became a Corporation. My nervous system became programmed to corporate tunes that had nothing to do with education. TAFE gradually became a health hazard to my hopes, dreams and life. Sure, working there helped pay the mortgage and bills but I feel I am still rehabilitating from the “brilliant career”. After 5 years away I am a lot more relaxed and do not feel the need to “perform” to some KPI. Yes, I remember some of those acronyms.

I am getting to know me again.

I remember how afraid I was to leap into the world of university study. Fear may be too strong a word, but I felt I was going to lose my “mindful” innocence, that the systemic conditioning of my thinking into the University Academic Mould, would destroy my individuality – my soul. Yes, it was my own Blakean song of innocence and experience. It was my own small town version of Paradise Lost. Whatever I feared at the beginning of university became a tool of remembrance for my efforts to work on myself in the Fourth Way. Fourth Way? Yeah, something I couldn’t talk about with any of you.

That’s the other thing. I wanted to tell you that one of the reasons I had to leave when I did was to ensure I didn’t have my second Saturn Return while still working in TAFE. If I stayed my life patterns showed it would be a disaster because I didn’t have the courage to follow my heart. I felt I couldn’t say this to you because you and others in the system would just laugh. Little did any of you know how often I used Astrology and the I Ching to strategize and coordinate projects that won national and state quality awards. In case you’re interested here’s an example that helped introduce English for Specific Purposes Program in the BHP Workplace. No one knew except me and my muse 🙂 This is not the place to explain Saturn Returns but if you’re interested let me know.

The old Zen images of enlightened Mind – “Chop wood, Carry water” and “No Moon, no water” are now hovering around my attitude. I’m getting something nutritious in just chopping and splitting logs for our evening fire, painting the new sleeper pine wood pegola and garden boxes with decking oil, planting seeds, cooking, reading and trading at a much more relaxed pace. Ah, trading! Yes, I’m now a Forex Trader. That’s a whole other letter – again, if you’re interested.

I’m reading drafts of many unfinished works and instead of flogging myself with guilt that they exist and NOT finished, I’m just reading them. I’m playing around with ideas and don’t know where it will take me except that I’m enjoying just catching up with my stuff…….catching up with me.

Yes, I know it all sounds narcissistic, and maybe it is, but I feel I need to nurture that part of me the Corporate World could not and did not value.

How are you?

Stavros

Like this:

I’m attempting to reach a state where I am a born again virgin soul, a state where I can dream once again of clouds passing through my ear into my head and out again through the other ear carrying life giving water.

I’m looking at the process of writing this down and it has opened up a little river of opportunity. Action … it seems acting (doing something) sets up its own dynamic in a super structure sense. The action into the unknown allows another higher order world that shows signs on the crossroads. The GPS here is set to the inner satellite orbiting one’s heart. Obviously the muscle pumping blood around the body hasn’t got a Latter Day Sputnik bipping around it. The heart I speak of is that part of ourselves which tastes truth and sees through the onion layered worlds we live in. Sees through? Yes, like a prehistoric insect sees through amber before it solidifies.

One of my greatest “heroes” is a guy called Gurdjieff. Someone wrote that the Fourth Way which Gurdjieff brought to the West was a method of making the real – super real. In fact, it is practical surrealism. So now I want to practically surrealise some of my dreams. Using the template of power-in-action through visualisation, various projects were able to be given a material existence (like the Cultural Stomp and the Flotillas of Hope). It is not “me” who did it, or who does it. In fact, my job as a person with heart is to move out of the way so that the forces attempting to make whatever needs to happen, happen.

I remember one time when the Flotillas of Hope project was white hot in its birthing. Two websites had already manifested, as well as a satellite phone and 2 boats. An art auction was about to happen in Sydney, where we raised over $8,000, and I get this call from a guy heavily involved in the Socialist Alliance.

He says, “Stavros, this is big. How the fuck are you managing this – where’s your committee?”

I laughed and told him that if he knew the truth he wouldn’t want to work with me because he’d think I was absolutely crazy. Really crazy! He pleaded with me to tell him the truth.

Tree of Life from Z’ev ben Shimon Halevi’sAdam and the Kabbalistic Tree, Rider, London 1974

Tree of Life - another aspect from Z'ev ben Shimon Halevi's "Adam and the Kabbalistic Tree", Rider, London 1974

He went quiet. I added, “I am just focussing on the vision – the image of us sailing to Nauru and the focus is the fire.”

He replied slowly as if it pained him to hear something like that, “B-u-l-l-s-h-i-t !!”

I laughed and told him that it was true and if it was all bullshit, how did he explain the manifestation of boats, websites, satellite phones, art auctions, crews, inverters etc etc that are here in the real world? He didn’t ask me again how I was managing .

I’m trying to get out of the way so that what is most necessary at this time comes to fruition. Who knows, it may be a book, a million dollars, a shop with hidden treasures or a beautiful garden. It may be the birth of another grand child, or my recently planted grapevine bearing fruit this coming year.

I suppose to gain a born again virgin soul is really to regain the innocence of a child. We were all once children, so innocent and then experience came in and made us fall from that state of grace. This is so beautifully expressed in William Blake’s “Songs of Innocence and Experience”.

William Blake's Frontispiece for "Songs of Innocence and Experience"

The Divine Image by William Blake

The Divine Image

To Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love
All pray in their distress;
And to these virtues of delight
Return their thankfulness.

For Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love
Is God our Father dear,
And Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love
Is man, His child and care.

For Mercy has a human heart,
Pity, a human face,
And Love, the human form divine,
And Peace, the human dress.

Then every man, of every clime,
That prays in his distress,
Prays to the human form divine,
Love, Mercy, Pity, Peace.

And all must love the human form,
In heathen, Turk, or Jew;
Where Mercy, Love, and Pity dwell
There God is dwelling too.

If anything the twentieth century will be remembered as the century that matter disappeared according to our high priests of Science. Twentieth Century physics has dematerialised matter before our eyes and under our touch. Further it has given a pattern of nothing as the source of the dematerialised matter. When I write “nothing” I’m referring to “no thing”. While we prang our dematerialised cars and battle over dematerialised resources nature continues to create and make life with her templates. These templates aren’t material, unless you consider subatomic vibrations matter. These templates are more like magnetic resonances – wavicles, perhaps, that influence and direct the exteriorization of the tree, the flower and the emu. These morphic resonances, as Rupert Sheldrake calls them, operate in the region of no matter, inside nothing.

As we witness the shift from a material world to the immaterial world we are also experiencing a fracturing of the idea of specific location in space – telecommunications in all its diversity is bringing the globe to one’s home. Video conferencing in virtual rooms with participants from all over the world are a reality now. The next step is to produce a lifesize holographic moving image – holographic TV – with global video conferencing capabilities. Chat Rooms on the internet screen will change to Chat Rooms in your living room with cyber holographic avators for company. The idea that you can’t be in two places at once will be even more untrue.

So, we have one trend that is dematerialising and another that compresses distance.

We also have the trend that the above two is potentially true only for a small proportion of humanity and practically true only for a smaller proportion of this group. This double small proportion of humanity who has access to this knowledge and technology also uses up most of the planet’s resources while the greater majority of humanity is undernourished and living in poverty. In this case we have the trend of concentration of power in the hands of the few and the dematerialisation – the dying of the many.

This is true from a global view.

The global nervous system (that is in one of its foetal stages) of telecommunications has connected all continents and every square inch of the earth’s surface has been traced by geostationary satellites. Google is photographing every street and house being used as locations on their Global Map. GPS enabled mobile phones and in car mapping shows that we are now immersed in an electromagnetic mist of data.

If earth is denser than water, and water is denser than air, and air is more dense than heat, then it is easy to see that heat and air are more dense than the electrographic data that is now sparking through the global nervous electrographic system.

We walk on earth, we drink water, breathe air, need the heat of the Sun – what is the experience of electrographic data ( telephone, TV, internet, GPS, satellite communications etc) ? We don’t eat it, drink it or breathe it and yet it is an element of our experience and it is permeating our being more everyday. What are the implications of our immersion in this “matter”.

Hokusai

There is baptism by water and by fire. What is this baptism in electronic – data mist?

Welcome

Thank you for visiting Journeys and Star Gazing. Here there's stories of my various journeys, some inner but mostly outer; photos, song lyrics, poems, astrological readings and interpretations, I Ching speculations, quotes from people I admire and some cool graphics. There are reflections and archival material on various human rights campaigns I have been involved in over the years. With these, some have a "Star Gazing" interpretive filter.

Posts include my interests in alchemy, magic, kabbalah, consciousness studies, the Fourth Way and anything else that may enter my sphere of living. I hope you enjoy your visit. I'd love to hear from you in the comments.

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